Q&A
Measures to prevent future payment issues with early childhood education providers
1:21:59
ยท
106 sec
Council Member Stevens inquires about measures implemented to prevent future payment issues similar to the Highbridge Advisory Council situation. Deputy Chancellor Hawkins outlines steps taken to mitigate such risks and improve oversight of provider payments and operations.
- Stevens emphasizes the importance of learning from the Highbridge situation to prevent future occurrences
- Hawkins describes a detailed invoicing process and regular payroll information checks
- The DOE is considering creating more direct communication channels with family child care providers
- Efforts are being made to balance oversight with avoiding excessive documentation requirements
- Hawkins acknowledges the severity of the situation and expresses regret for its occurrence
- The discussion highlights the ongoing efforts to improve the system and prevent similar issues in the future
Althea V. Stevens
1:21:59
Well thank you for that update and I would have loved to have the update not here and I'm gonna have to act on the record so please make sure that you're kind of connecting with us.
1:22:06
But then the last thing I was gonna say, have you guys done anything to ensure that something like that wouldn't be able to happen again?
1:22:12
Because I think that that's just as important of how we use these these things as learning tools, and so have you guys implemented anything to ensure this doesn't happen again?
1:22:20
And just for those who don't know there was a provider who did not submit payment to their staff and they went out of business and so there was staff who were not paid for months and so they've been working really hard to figure out how to pay It
Simone Hawkins
1:22:31
was an awful situation.
1:22:32
So this actually occurred start of me joining in my role and we immediately started to evaluate what we can do to mitigate these.
1:22:41
And so for one, know we have a very detailed invoicing process but we don't want to over exert or ask for more data and backup.
1:22:51
We do ask for payroll information usually at least twice a year because we don't want to be document heavy and to contribute to any delays in payments.
1:23:00
And then also obviously just having a different pulse and check-in with our providers to make sure that they are being diligent in their expectations of the contract.
1:23:09
Lastly, creating more spaces to connect with the family child care providers directly outside of the network is something we are considering.
1:23:17
Clearly our contract is with the network, we want to respect that relationship but this situation clearly demonstrated a need for us to connect directly with the family child care providers.
1:23:28
And if we create that space we are hopeful that things will come up that we won't normally see system and so we're hoping to to implement some of those strategies in the future.
1:23:37
It was very, very awful and I am so sorry that happened.
1:23:41
Thank you.
Rita Joseph
1:23:44
Council member Hudson.
Crystal Hudson
1:23:45
Thank you so much.